Yan Zhihan arrived quickly. She lived in Sifang New Village, not far from Meihua Villa. Taking bus route 59, it took at most half an hour.

The girl wore a white shirt and denim skirt, standing beneath the building with an umbrella.

“What’s the matter? Why such urgency in calling me over?”

Seeing Bai Yang peering around furtively as he came downstairs, holding something in his arms, Sister Yan stepped forward while asking.

“Sister Yan, I need a favor.” Bai Yang said solemnly, “It’s an emergency, a matter of life and death.”

“Alright, tell me,” Yan Zhihan nodded, “What do you need me to do?”

Bai Yang handed her the plastic-wrapped package he’d been holding. Yan Zhihan put her umbrella on the ground and took it, weighing it curiously as she examined it.

“What is this?”

“A masturbation device.”

“Ah?”

The girl’s hands trembled, nearly dropping the plastic package. Her eyes grew round as saucers, her small mouth hanging open.

“This-this-this-this… but what does this have to do with life and death?”

Sister Yan thought to herself, could it be that too many of your descendants died in this thing?

“My mom is searching my room. If she finds this, I’m dead for sure!” Bai Yang explained, “Isn’t that a matter of life and death?”

“Then… what do you want me to do?” Yan Zhihan asked, “Keep it for you?”

“No no, how could a girl keep something like this at home? How would you explain if your parents found it?” Bai Yang shook his head, “Just help me hide it.”

Sister Yan held the plastic package, thinking carefully that indeed it wouldn’t be good to keep this at her home.

If her parents discovered it, how could she explain?

“Where should we hide it then?”

“Crescent Lake.”

The girl was slightly shocked: “Throw it in the lake?”

“Yes, Sister Yan, you need to find a secluded spot by the lake to hide it, so others won’t find it. Look how I’ve wrapped it completely in plastic, totally sealed, so it’s waterproof. But don’t throw it somewhere too hard to retrieve, because I’ll need to get it back later.”

“You—want to get it back—later?” Yan Zhihan said word by word, “You mean you still want to use it?”

“Yes, after the crisis passes, I need to reunite with it. After all, I’ve used it for so long, there’s an emotional attachment.” Bai Yang nodded, “It remembers my shape.”

The girl opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say.

She hadn’t expected to be called over for this. It was completely absurd.

“After you hide it, Sister Yan, tell me the exact location through WeChat, but don’t type it out, absolutely don’t type it,” Bai Yang made another strange request, “You must use voice message.”

“Why?” Yan Zhihan was puzzled.

“Because my mom checks my chat history.” Bai Yang blamed everything on his mother, “If my mom finds out I’m dead, for my life’s safety, you must send voice messages.”

“Voice messages?” Yan Zhihan confirmed.

“Yes, voice messages.”

The girl nodded. She didn’t think too deeply about whether Little White Sheep’s ridiculous reasoning made sense, nor did she consider that WeChat messages could be deleted. She just found it strange that hiding a masturbation device required such elaborate measures.

Perhaps all boys were such bizarre creatures?

“Alright, after I hide it, I’ll tell you the location through WeChat.”

“After this is done, Sister Yan, you must keep this secret. Don’t mention it to anyone in any situation,” Bai Yang pressed his palms together, “Otherwise I’ll die of shame and have to jump from Purple Gold Bridge into the lake.”

“Fine, fine, after today I’ll forget all about it,” Yan Zhihan rolled her eyes, “Remember to treat me to milk tea afterward.”

“Definitely! Definitely! Sister Yan, I’m counting on you for this. I’ll never forget your great kindness.” Bai Yang’s phone suddenly vibrated in his pocket. He took it out for a look, his expression changing, “My mom’s calling for me again. I need to go up first. Sister Yan, I await your good news!”

“Alright, you can trust your girlfriend to me!”

Bai Yang hurriedly returned to the building entrance. After turning the corner on the stairs, he reached out to stop his phone’s alarm. He climbed to the third floor and stood in the stairwell, watching through the window as Sister Yan’s figure with the black parasol gradually disappeared into the distance.

This task could only be done by Yan Zhihan.

The young girl was shy and wouldn’t go around spreading news about helping hide a masturbation device. From what Bai Yang knew of Sister Yan, after today, she would never mention this again.

If He Dashao were to handle this instead, it would be disastrous.

He Leqin had even less shame than Bai Yang. Though young, this fellow had watched countless videos, his discerning eyes reaching the realm of enlightenment. He Dashao once said: third-rate veteran viewers identify video numbers by the actresses, second-rate ones by the scenes, first-rate ones by the male actors—but he was a fighter jet among veterans, able to identify video numbers by the male equipment.

Ordinary people would only say—

“I’ve seen this actress before!”

“I’ve seen this plot before!”

But He Leqin would slam the table:

“I’ve seen this equipment before!”

If He Leqin were asked to help hide the time capsule, he’d probably want Bai Yang to open it up to examine and appreciate the model.

Watching Yan Zhihan disappear around the corner of the path, Bai Yang turned and climbed the stairs step by step. He still wasn’t confident, but today’s plan was his final plan, his Stalingrad counteroffensive campaign. If this failed too, then he truly had no other options left—Stalin would be driven into the Bering Strait to fish with Siberian brown bears.

In this operation, Bai Yang didn’t know the time capsule’s exact location, while Yan Zhihan didn’t know what was really in the package—at this moment, Bai Yang didn’t yet realize this was the second key element of Time Slow Delivery.

Bai Yang later summarized it as the Double-Blind Principle.

The so-called Double-Blind Principle was an element that Bai Yang and others gradually summarized and refined through their Time Slow Delivery attempts, namely that the transporter must not possess all the exact information about the goods—whether that was a time capsule or something else. This principle manifested at the operational level as requiring at least two people to bury a time capsule: the person who knows what the capsule is can’t know where it is, and the person who knows where it is can’t know what it is.

By dividing the Time Slow Delivery transporter into two parts, or even three or four parts, they could minimize the transporter’s influence on the capsule to the greatest extent.

Much later, Zhao Bowen explained it as a means of weakening “purposefulness.”

The weaker the “purposefulness,” the higher the possibility of Time Slow Delivery’s success.

The Double-Blind Principle was just one method of achieving this effect. There were many other methods to weaken Time Slow Delivery’s purposefulness to deceive this world’s great filter. Some methods were extremely powerful but extremely costly, impossible to accomplish through individual effort—in the days that followed, the National Emergency Response Group implemented the most powerful weakening measure in history to provide guaranteed strategic support for Ban Xia.

But that’s a story for another time.